A non-governmental organisation, Optimistic Outlook, has urged the Federal Government to pay reparations to the Niger Delta for the degradation and pollution it has suffered since oil was first discovered in commercial quantity in Oloibiri in the late 1950s.
The call was made by the Executive Director of Optimistic Outlook, Mr Somi Uranta, who spoke in Lagos at the unveiling of the NGO.
Uranta insisted that the Niger Delta is in an uncomfortable situation, noting that the area is not taken care of as it should.
He maintained that until things are done the right way in the Niger Delta, things will continue not to be well with the country.
Uranta said the country has earned over $600 billion in oil wealth from the area, yet, a despicable trail of environmental pollution, economic disenfranchisement and even spiritual stagnation have been left behind in Niger Delta.
According to him, “The Laws of Retributive Justice, of Boomerang, of Karma, of cause and effect etc. have set in. The only solution to resolving the problems confronting the community is to do a restitution, an atonement for the mindless evils meted out to the Niger Delta.”
Continuing, “Our means of livelihood as a people have been systematically destroyed by the resultant effects of our mindless exploitation and exploration of oil in the Niger Delta. We cannot fish, we cannot farm, we cannot even sleep at night due to gas flaring. We cannot drink rainwater, because of its acidic content.
“We can’t even breathe in fresh air, yet the stupendous petrol dollars extracted from the soil of the South-South and a few other states, are being used for the development of the entire nation, except the Niger Delta region.
“This is tyranny of the majority against the minority. This is tyranny of the many against the few. This is man’s inhumanity to man.
“Crude oil has been more of a curse to the Niger Delta region than a blessing. The wheel of natural justice and equity thrives on fairness and justice and therefore, every act of inequity, unfairness and injustice must be revisited with a double penalty of the infractions,” he said.
